


Continue?

by PrincessKitty1



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst, F/M, If You Don't Like Angst Then This One Isn't For You, Post-Gorizilla, Season 2 spoilers, major angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-04-05 09:10:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14040930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrincessKitty1/pseuds/PrincessKitty1
Summary: This is the story of how Chat Noir saved Adrien Agreste from falling to his death.(A nightmarish narrative about the lengths two people will go to save the one they love.)





	Continue?

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is told in reverse.

5

Adrien Agreste was falling to his death.

He did not, however, believe he would die.

Though the wind roared in his ears, whipped his clothes into a frenzy, stung his eyes and lashed at his skin, and though the pavement below grew closer with each passing second, he was not afraid. His nervous kwami begged him to transform, to reveal his identity to the crowd below and deal with the consequences later, but Adrien refused.

Because he knew with complete certainty that Ladybug would save him.

Ladybug always saved him. She was his partner, his best friend, his hero. She'd asked him to trust her, so trust her he would.

Seconds until impact. The people on the ground, once indistinguishable dots, had details and faces now.

Any moment, Ladybug would catch him. He heard the crowd's screams—

Something tackled him from behind.

An arm wrapped around his waist. His trajectory changed, and rather than falling straight downward he arced forward, toward the people below. The group of onlookers split in half to make room for him. He lost his balance when his feet touched the pavement, but the arm around his middle steadied him before letting go. The crowd burst into wild applause. Adrien turned to thank his Lady for saving him.

And came face to face with Chat Noir.

Adrien stared. The world tilted around him. Was he hallucinating? His heart beat too fast and his fingers and toes tingled from the speed of his fall. He blinked hard, trying to clear his spotty vision.

But it was Chat Noir in front of him.

It was  _him_ in front of him.

Those were his eyes, his nose, his mouth, his hair, his arms, his legs. That was his smile, twisted with agony. And it was his voice that spoke, barely audible over the excited crowd:

"Take care of them."

Then Chat Noir turned and walked away.

Adrien watched him go—hardly aware of the commotion around him, of the bellowing akuma on the roof still waiting to be defeated—and was wracked by a shiver of unspeakable horror.

4

Chat Noir sat in the center of an enormous butterfly. Behind him, the dome's large, circular window let in the afternoon gloom, which made the white insects fluttering around him glow brighter by comparison. One landed on his knee. Its wings folded upward, then spread apart, then folded upward again. He stretched a claw toward it and watched it climb his hand with jerking steps.

A long shadow crossed the floor for the umpteenth time.

"You're pacing," Chat Noir said. He lifted the butterfly into the air, and it quickly became lost among the others.

"He's taking too long," Marinette Dupain-Cheng replied.

Chat Noir climbed to his feet and looked over his shoulder. There stood Marinette, his classmate, his friend, his Ladybug, the love of his life.

The love of  _Adrien's_ life, he reminded himself. He wasn't Adrien. Not really.

"Do you think he's hurt?" Chat Noir asked.

Marinette stared out the window, her eyes frighteningly dull. "If he is," she said, "I can't do anything for him."

Chat Noir nodded. She didn't have her Miraculous anymore. It was inside of him now. Or he was inside of it. No matter how clearly they'd explained the situation to him, he couldn't quite come to terms with it. In his mind, he  _was_  Adrien Agreste. He only noticed that he wasn't because he couldn't do anything of his own free will.

If he had his own free will, he'd have put a stop to this already.

He walked up to Marinette. She slipped away from the window and, to his surprise, she wrapped her arms around him. But there was no warmth in her embrace. He was a fake. A puppet. Her Adrien would never exist again in this timeline, and soon, neither would anyone else.

"You don't have to do this," he whispered.

Marinette's grip tightened. "Yes I do," she said. "I asked him to trust me. I promised I would save him, and I let him down." She lifted her head. Her blue eyes were wild, haunted, like she was trapped in a nightmare she couldn't wake up from.

Chat Noir caressed her freckled cheek. His body may have been a construct, but his feelings for her were real. "He couldn't possibly hold it against you," he said.

Her face went slack again. "How would you know?" She pulled herself away from him and resumed her vigil at the window.

Chat Noir gave her one last sorrowful look, sighed, and went back to his seat among the butterflies. But before he could get comfortable, a trapdoor opened in the center of the floor and a slouched figure rose into the room.

Hawkmoth. His father. And in his hand, a sabre dripping blood.

Marinette broke away from the window and joined him where he stood. "Is it done?" she asked.

Hawkmoth nodded. "There should be no more opposition to our plan."

Chat Noir hadn't stopped staring at the sabre. His hands shook. "What did you do to them?" he asked.

Marinette and Hawkmoth both looked at him as if he was the most tiresome thing they'd ever laid eyes on.

Chat Noir shook his head. No. Rena Rouge. Queen Bee. Master Fu. "Did you kill them?" he whispered. His throat tightened. Tears blurred his vision.

"I incapacitated them," Hawkmoth said. He threw the sabre aside, and the blood of Adrien and Marinette's friends spattered on the floor. "But even if I had killed them, what would it matter? This world will be destroyed the moment Adrien is saved."

Chat Noir shook his head again. Tears cut paths down his cheeks as he fixed his father— _Adrien's_ father—with a disbelieving look. "Were you always this heartless?"

"Heartless?" Hawkmoth straightened to his full height, and that proud posture was so familiar to Chat Noir that he might have guessed his identity the moment he saw him. "Everything I've done," he said, "has been for my family."

Chat Noir choked on a sob. It hurt. He wasn't Adrien, but he felt Adrien's heart breaking inside his chest, because in this timeline, he'd been spared the pain of learning his father was a villain. Because he knew that living meant he would have to face this someday. His gaze shifted to Marinette. Sweet Marinette. Beautiful Marinette. Brave Marinette.

Desperate Marinette.

"And you?" Chat Noir asked. He pointed at the bloody sabre. "Is this really what you want?"

Marinette did not follow the gesture, but for a moment, the mask of her determination slipped. Tears flooded her eyes. Her bottom lip trembled. "He's waiting for me to save him," she said.

And Chat Noir wanted to comfort her. He wanted to run across the room and throw his arms around her and kiss her and tell her that it was okay. That he was fine. That the only person he could blame for what had happened was himself. That he would never accuse her, never hold a grudge.

But suddenly, he was falling. Hurtling through time and space away from Marinette. Watching her get smaller and smaller and knowing, without a shadow of a doubt, that he would never see her again.

He landed on his feet inside of an office.

A man in a business suit stood not two feet away from him, gawking with his mouth open.

Chat Noir ran past him, dove out the window and caught Adrien Agreste in midair.

3

"Marinette?"

Chat Noir stood on wobbly legs as he took in his surroundings. A large, dome-shaped room. White butterflies crisscrossed through the air. In front of him, a shuttered window opened only partially to let in a bit of gray light, and in that spotlight stood two figures. The first was his classmate, Marinette.

The second was Hawkmoth.

Chat Noir grabbed his baton and readied himself for an attack. "Get away from her!" he shouted.

But neither Marinette nor Hawkmoth moved.

The latter sighed. "Stand down, Adrien. I have no intention of hurting Ms. Dupain-Cheng."

Chat Noir's face went slack. Hawkmoth knew who he was? And he'd just revealed his identity in front of Marinette? His grip on the baton tightened. A million questions went through his mind, but he settled for the easiest one. "Where's Ladybug?"

The last he'd seen of Ladybug, she'd been fighting his akumatized bodyguard. She'd told him to trust him and he'd jumped off a building. How had he gotten into what appeared to be Hawkmoth's lair? When had he transformed? Why couldn't he remember anything? He tried not to let the panic show on his face. He had to take control of the situation. He had to rescue Marinette.

Hawkmoth gestured to the girl, who wore an oddly detached expression that Chat Noir had never seen on her before. "She's right here," he said.

Chat Noir's heart leapt into his throat. He looked at Marinette, but she didn't return the look, and in the dim afternoon lighting he saw that her earrings were gone.  _No_ , he thought.  _It can't be_. Rage consumed his thoughts. He extended the baton into a fighting staff and pointed it at Hawkmoth. "Give her Miraculous back."

Hawkmoth didn't even bat an eye. "I cannot."

"Give it back!" Chat Noir yelled, and his voice echoed around the cavernous room.

"He can't," Marinette said. Chat Noir's head whipped in her direction again. A tumultuous mix of emotions crashed around in his head: anger, confusion, sorrow, disbelief.

"Why not?" he asked her.

"Because you areher Miraculous," Hawkmoth replied.

The room went silent save for the whisper of butterfly wings. Chat Noir squeezed his eyes shut. Tried to remember. Gorizilla. The skyscraper. His leap of faith. The ground rising up to meet him. And then what? He opened his eyes again, suddenly aware that he was breathing too hard. His gaze moved from Marinette to Hawkmoth to the hand in which he held his baton.

No ring.

How could he be Chat Noir without his ring?

"Marinette?" he whispered. He felt dangerously close to a panic attack. "Bug?" The endearment almost didn't leave his lips. "What's happening?"

Marinette lifted her head. Her eyes were bloodshot, as if she'd been crying all night. "I couldn't save him," she said, her voice completely devoid of emotion. "Adrien is dead."

"No," Chat Noir said. "I'm right here." He should have told her. After they fought Volpina, he should have told her. He  _knew_ he should have told her. She wouldn't have to be standing in front of him now, thinking that she'd let him die.

Marinette's jaw clenched. Her fingers curled into fists. She glared at him— _really glared_ at him, as if he'd mocked her. "You are not Adrien," she spat.

Hawkmoth put a hand on her shoulder in a pseudo-comforting gesture, then stepped forward. Chat Noir stepped backwards. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't think. He had to get out of there. Nothing made sense. How was he not Adrien? Where was his ring? Why was Marinette, Ladybug,  _here_? His anger dominated his other emotions and he ran at Hawkmoth, pulled his baton back for a swing.

His legs gave out before he made it within range.

He collapsed in a heap on the floor, his whole body paralyzed.

"You can't attack us," Hawkmoth said. "We are the ones who made the wish, after all."

Chat Noir fought for control of his tongue. "What… wish…?"

"To save Adrien," Marinette replied. She hadn't moved from her spot, hadn't unclenched her fists. Her limbs were rigid with determination, and she looked down at him, looked down  _on_ him, like he was nothing more than a servant who'd stepped out of line.

"You will travel back in time to stop Adrien from falling to his death," Hawkmoth explained. "You have only taken the form of Chat Noir because Ladybug was expecting you. But no matter what you might think or how you might feel, you are not my son. And deep down, you know that."

Chat Noir managed to push himself up onto his knees. "Your son?"

Hawkmoth's transformation fell, revealing none other than Gabriel Agreste.

Chat Noir couldn't take it anymore. He turned away from him and dry-heaved.

"I'm beginning to doubt that this thing is capable of saving anyone," he heard Gabriel say.

"They wouldn't call it an ultimate power if it couldn't get its job done," Marinette's voice responded.

Tears stung Chat Noir's eyes. His stomach clenched painfully. He wanted to go home. He wanted his mother. He wanted to crawl right back into bed and start the day over, or better yet, wake up in bed and discover that it had all been some horrible nightmare. He couldn't be dead. He wouldn't be in so much pain if he was dead. But regardless of how hard he tried to remember anything after jumping off the building, no memories came. The movie of his life abruptly ended before he hit the ground.

"How long…?"

"How long what?" Gabriel asked.

"How long have I been dead?"

Chat Noir didn't want to know. Knowing made it real. But he had to know.

"Two days," Gabriel said.

Marinette's voice interrupted the conversation. "They're coming."

 _Two days_. Chat Noir watched his father approach the window where Marinette stood.  _I've been dead for two days_. He turned their words over in his mind. Ultimate power. He wasn't Adrien. He was Ladybug's Miraculous. They'd made a wish to save him. To save Adrien. Because he wasn't Adrien, even though everything inside of him told him he was.

"I'll take care of them," Gabriel said. He held something out to a small purple kwami floating beside him. "How much longer do we have before Chat Noir goes back?"

"An hour," Marinette said.

"Very well." Gabriel pointed at something across the room. "The mansion is already on lockdown, but if they manage to breach security, take the elevator down to the basement and use this code to detonate the missiles in the walls. The house will be destroyed, but you and  _him_ will be safe."

Chat Noir watched them as if in a dream. He saw Marinette take a slip of paper from his father, saw his father transform and turn several butterflies purple, which he then sent out into the city of Paris. He didn't want to believe it. The whole thing sounded too farfetched. But he had no choice.

When his father had gone, Chat Noir looked at Marinette again. She'd turned her attention back to the window. "Who is he taking care of?" he asked.

Marinette winced. It was the first hint of her usual self he'd seen since waking up in the butterfly room. "Rena Rouge. Master Fu. Queen Bee," she said. "The Guardian of the Miraculous and whoever else he convinced to fight alongside him. They're trying to stop us from bringing Adrien back."

Chat Noir almost snapped at her that he  _was_ Adrien, but all the evidence pointed to the contrary. "Why would they do that?"

"Because sending you back in time means our timeline will be wiped out," Marinette said. She made a halfhearted sweeping gesture with her arm. "Me, your father, all of them, all of this. Gone."

"What?" Chat Noir scrambled to his feet. "Marinette, are you serious?"

"We already had this conversation."

He didn't remember any such conversation. "Why would you do that?" he demanded. "This  _whole world_ is worth less to you than one person?"

Marinette didn't say anything to that. She didn't have to. Her silence was as loud a yes as words would have been. And on a normal day, Chat Noir might have been thrilled to learn that information. She was Ladybug, after all. He loved the girl standing in front of him, staring out the window at her friends as if they were a thorn in her foot. But it was so far from a normal day that the only thing he felt was the urge to laugh until he cried.

"Marinette…"

" _Don't_ ," she snapped. "Don't talk to me like that with his voice. I know what you're trying to do, but Monsieur Agreste and I have made up our minds, so you stay over there and be quiet!"

Chat Noir recoiled from her. This couldn't have been his Ladybug. It couldn't have been. But he recognized her stubbornness, grotesque though it had become.

"I'm going to save Adrien," she said. "He trusted me. So what if this is the more complicated way? He'll be fine. All of us will be fine. Just not here."

Chat Noir considered her words. Would they be fine? If in every single timeline they were one mistake, one heartbreaking death away from destroying the universe to fix things, could they really be considered fine? The thought terrified him. Because he knew on some level that if Marinette had been the one who died, he'd have done anything to get her back.  _Adrien_  would have done anything to get her back—he wasn't Adrien.

Then who in the world was he?

He sat on the floor. Followed the flight paths of several butterflies around the room with his eyes. Whoever he was,  _what_ ever he was, Marinette had made it clear that he wouldn't get through to her. So he might as well wait.

2

"Hawkmoth and Ladybug working together. Who would have thought it?"

There was an attempt at mockery, but it fell flat. The man standing before Marinette in the foyer of the Agreste mansion was broken, little more than an empty shell. She could relate.

"You have the ring?" she asked. Somewhere in the magic of her connection with Tikki, she could sense her kwami's fear. It pulled at her conscience, begging her to reconsider. She ignored it.

Gabriel Agreste, already transformed, reached into the pocket of his suit and withdrew Chat Noir's Miraculous. A wave of nausea hit Marinette. The ring was still stained with Adrien's blood. She turned her head to the side and nodded.

"Let's do this," she said.

Gabriel slipped the ring back into his pocket. "Follow me."

They walked through the foyer and into his office. Marinette had been in this room before. An enormous gold frame displayed dozens of photos of Adrien from various modeling shoots. It felt wrong, seeing him so happy, so alive, when the last she'd seen of him was a bloody spot on concrete.

Gabriel typed something into his computer and a control panel slid up from the floor. Marinette had seen that before, too. "I suspect the Guardian will sense the activation of the Miraculous's ultimate power and try to stop us," he said. He pressed a button and the mansion's security shutters slammed into place, blocking out the afternoon light. "That ought to buy us some time."

Marinette joined him in front of a painting of the missing Madame Agreste. "Stand here," Gabriel said, and pointed to a spot on the floor. Then he aligned his fingers on the surface of the painting and pressed down.

Marinette started a bit as the floor beneath her moved. It lowered her into a cold, narrow passage lit by emergency lights along the ground. She stepped off the platform. It immediately went back up for Gabriel, and a moment later, he joined her in the passage. Together they walked to the end of the hall, where another moving platform waited to take them to the surface. Marinette noticed a staircase off to one side, leading down.

"Where does that go?" she asked.

"An emergency bunker beneath the mansion," Gabriel replied. He offered no more information. She didn't pursue the subject.

The second platform took them into a domed observatory full of butterflies.  _So this is where he does his real work_ , Marinette thought. On another day, she would have been amazed that such innocent creatures could cause so much mayhem with a little bit of magic. But the age of Ladybug and Chat Noir versus Hawkmoth had come to a violent end. Now all that remained was a grim truce.

Gabriel withdrew Chat Noir's ring and turned to face her. "Your Miraculous, please."

Marinette hesitated. She could still change her mind. She could put an end to him right here, retrieve the ring and the brooch hidden behind his tie, return the Miraculous to Master Fu, and move on with her life.

But she'd already abandoned Adrien once. She wouldn't abandon him again.

"Tikki, spots off."

Her transformation came undone. Gabriel stared at her as she ignored Tikki's protests and removed her earrings to silence her. "Marinette Dupain-Cheng," he said. "I should have known."

Marinette merely placed the earrings in his gloved hand, beside the bloody ring. She didn't want to hear it. She didn't want to hear anything except a confirmation that Adrien could be saved.

The two Miraculous, in reaction to Gabriel's will, began to glow. They shot off into the air, startling the butterflies, and circled around each other various times, their light glowing brighter and brighter. Then the light barreled back down and landed before Marinette and Gabriel. When the glow faded, a humanoid figure stood before them, devoid of any features except a pair of white eyes.

" _Human beings_ ," it said in a voice that seemed to come from Marinette's own head. " _It has been so very long. And yet, it would appear that human nature has not changed at all. Selfishness masquerading as heroism… playing at being god…_ "

Marinette heard contempt in the voice and her heart hardened against it. Selfishness? Her desire to save the life of the boy she loved was selfishness?

The being looked directly at her. " _Yes, selfishness. For I know that even when I explain the heavy price of your wish, you will still pay it._ " Its eyes shifted to Gabriel. " _And your selfishness is even greater than hers. One look at all the chaos you have brought to this city for the sake of saving your wife is sufficient to tell me that. How much your son suffered because of you! And you wish to bring him back to endure more of it?_ "

Marinette saw the emotions warring on Gabriel's face. Another time, another day, she might have tried to understand him. She may have even felt a little sorry for him. But she was past the point of caring about his motives. "Did you come here to lecture us or grant our wish?" she snapped at the glowing being.

" _Ladybug_ ," it said, " _your passion will consume this entire world._ " Its gaze focused on a point between Marinette and Gabriel. " _Here are the terms of your wish. I will take the form of Chat Noir and go back in time to save Adrien from certain death. That way, his identity will be protected from the crowd and from the both of you. However, the moment I step back into the past, the future will be rewritten. This world in which Adrien died will cease to exist._ You  _will cease to exist._ "

In the silence that followed, Marinette considered those words. What would not existing feel like? Nothing, she supposed. No awareness. No consciousness. No pain. She could still hear herself screaming, could still see Adrien's blood on the concrete. That pain would come to an end. And in another life, that pain would never begin, because Adrien would live. They'd have a chance at a happy ending.

"I accept those terms," she said.

The being did not register any sort of surprise. " _And you, Gabriel Agreste?_ "

Marinette waited impatiently as he mulled it over. What could he be thinking? This had been his idea. He'd approached her, he'd pleaded with her to use her power to save his son. Would he hesitate now?

Gabriel's expression settled on resolution. "I accept your terms."

The being's eyes widened. A storm of magic filled the room, catching the poor butterflies in violent, swirling winds. Marinette closed her eyes and braced herself for whatever came next. But in the darkness, she heard the being's voice.

" _I will make the journey on the minute of Adrien's death and not a moment sooner. Use that time to think about what you have done, you audacious mortals. It is not too late to change your minds._ "

Then the wind died down, and in the being's place stood Chat Noir, healthy and whole.

1

_It hurts._

Ladybug sat on one of the Eiffel Tower's steel beams, curled into a ball.

 _It hurts so much_.

In her mind, she saw Adrien, standing on Gorizilla's hand, smiling at her.

 _I can't breathe_.

Always, he'd said. He would always trust her. And then he'd jumped.

The scene played over and over behind her eyelids. Smile. Always. Jump. Rewind. Smile. Always. Jump. Rewind. She couldn't get it out of her head. Adrien had leapt to his death, expecting her to catch him.

Had there been a split second of doubt before he hit the ground, she wondered? Before everything had gone black, had he realized she wouldn't make it to him in time?

She felt sick, but she had nothing left to throw up. She'd done all that yesterday. Hadn't eaten since yesterday. She'd been too busy screaming. Leaning over the side of the roof and screaming because there was so much blood.

She hadn't even gone home. She couldn't face her family, her friends, her classmates. She couldn't bear to see their grief. She did not have the strength to carry it all on top of her own.

She would kill Hawkmoth. If only she knew where the coward hid himself. She'd wrap her hands around his throat and squeeze until the life drained out of him and she'd enjoy every second of it.

"Ladybug."

She bolted to her feet. No one except superheroes could access this part of the tower without serious climbing equipment. She turned around—

—and came face-to-face with the object of her hatred.

She'd launched her yoyo at him before she was even aware of her hand moving. He knocked it aside with a cane. "What do you intend to do with that?" he asked in a voice that held nothing but exhaustion.

"Hang you over the side of this tower," Ladybug spat. "Wouldn't that be something? The very place where you made your first declaration of war against us, turned into the site of your public execution?"

"You are too young to be executing anyone," Hawkmoth said. He lowered his cane to the beam beneath his feet. Ladybug watched him warily. "I'm here to call a truce."

"You couldn't have done that before you killed my partner?"

He flinched at her words. He didn't even try to defend himself. "I suspected it," he said. "From my watchtower, I begged him to transform." His voice broke. Ladybug's muscles relaxed, but she did not move out of her fighting stance. She waited until Hawkmoth regained his composure. "Adrien…" He shook his head. Wiped a hand over his eyes. And then his transformation fell, leaving a disheveled and grieving father where a villain had once stood. "He was my son," he said.

Ladybug stared. She stared at him for a long time, her hatred growing, festering, swallowing her broken and bleeding heart. "You killed your own son?" she whispered.

Gabriel's shoulders heaved, but he stayed upright. "I never meant for this to happen. All I wanted was to keep him safe, and I…"

"Adrien is dead because of  _his own_   _father_?" Ladybug screamed. His being dead had been bad enough. His being dead because she hadn't saved him had been bad enough. But his being dead because his  _father_ had created the life-threatening situation was too much for her to bear.

"You may hang me if you like, Ladybug. It would be nothing less than I deserve," Gabriel said. "But before you do, I might have a solution to all this."

"A solution to Adrien being dead because of you?"

He reached into the pocket of his suit, pulled out a small object, and showed it to her. Ladybug froze.

It was Chat Noir's Miraculous.

"The ultimate power," Gabriel said. Tears trickled down his cheeks, but he made no move to wipe them away. "With Ladybug's Miraculous and Chat Noir's Miraculous combined, we can fix this." He looked her in the eye, the picture of a desperate man. "We can bring Adrien back to life."

In her despair, Ladybug had quite forgotten about the ultimate power. Hawkmoth's goal. Gabriel Agreste's goal. The very thing Adrien had been killed for, now offered to Ladybug as a white flag. Whatever Gabriel had wanted it for no longer mattered—or at least, mattered less than the life of his son.

Ladybug subdued her rage. She still wished to see the man hanged for what he'd done, but as much as she hated to admit it, they had something in common: They both loved Adrien more than they despised each other.

She looked at Chat Noir's ring. It was still stained with Adrien's blood. Her hands balled into fists. "This isn't a trick?" she asked.

"I revealed my identity to you. I laid down my weapon and put my life in your hands. Is that not proof enough of my sincerity?" Gabriel let out a shuddering sigh. "I want my son back," he said. "He's all I had left."

An image of him sitting alone in his enormous mansion flashed through Ladybug's mind. He deserved that. He really did. But not at Adrien's expense. Her molten hatred cooled into hard determination. She met Gabriel Agreste's watery eyes. "Fine," she said. "But don't get any ideas. I'm not doing this for you."

Gabriel chuckled mirthlessly. "Nor would I dream of doing anything for you." With his public execution postponed, he stepped into Ladybug's attack range and offered her his hand in a show of diplomacy. "For Adrien?"

Ladybug took it without hesitation. "For Adrien."

0

It was a beautiful afternoon. Blue sky, sunny, just the right amount of warm. A shame that Adrien's day wasn't going exactly as planned.

"Hold on!" Ladybug cried, then disappeared over the side of the building.

He'd only meant to go catch a movie, to see his mother moving and smiling and breathing again. It had been less than a year since her disappearance, and already he was starting to forget things about her. If he closed his eyes, for example, and tried to picture her face, he could never get the whole image. Just details, all jumbled up and out of order.

Instead, he'd ended up dragging poor Marinette around Paris in her pajamas while the paparazzi hounded them. He sighed. He'd have to make it up to her somehow.

Ladybug reappeared on the opposite side of the building, yoyo in hand. Right. Adrien had also gotten his bodyguard akumatized. He'd have to make that up to him, too.

"Let go of Adrien right now!" Ladybug gave a hard pull and the massive gorilla's hand opened enough for him to wiggle free. Adrien stood on his bodyguard's hand and took in the view.

All of Paris stretched out before him. Under that serene, picturesque blue sky, it could have been a normal day.

"Jump, Adrien! Quick!"

But that day was anything but normal. His life was anything but normal. The spotted superheroine, the giant gorilla, and the crowd of spectators down below were proof enough of that. He looked at Ladybug, saw the worry in her eyes.

"You have to trust me!" she cried.

He smiled. To comfort her. To let her know that everything was going to be okay.

"Always!" he said. Then he jumped.

And just like that, Adrien Agreste was falling to his death.

He did not, however, believe he would die.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment after the beep. Beeeep.
> 
> Come bother me on Tumblr (geek-fashionista).


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